Willingness of Chinese to Work for Less Accelerating Russian Flight from Far East

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 10 – The continuing exodus of Russians from the Russian Far East is the result of the low wages in the region, Georgy Filin says; and those wages have remained low because of the influx not of Central Asians who won’t work for such pay but of Chinese migrants who will.

            Because the Chinese will work for less, businesses want the number of such immigrants to increase, the Versiya commentator says; but the consequences of that is that Russia is losing demographic control over the region despite all the much-ballyhooed federal programs to attract Russians there (versia.ru/za-tri-desyatiletiya-s-dalnego-vostoka-sbezhali-chetyre-naxodki).

            And because the business community has the ear of the governors of the federal subjects there, this trend is accelerating despite its negative consequences for the country as a whole. The response of the authorities has been to celebrate the fact that the population of the region hasn’t fallen more. But the only reason is immigration, mostly from China but also from Central Asia.